Fate's Hand
by Raina Frost
Summary: Young Ather is a jhereg with a destiny, but will she survive long enough to achieve her destiny and give one of her clutch to a worthy man as she had been intended? or will she die a sudden death by cruel jealous others, hunted to the brink of sanity?
1. Prologue

Fate's Hand

Sum: In the beginning Vladimir Taltos uses his witchcraft to compel a young jhereg to him in hopes of gaining one of her eggs. We know Vlad's tale, this is the jhereg's side of the story and her plight through life and destiny.

Disclaimer: this world belongs to Steven Brust, but most of the characters in it will be my creation, since the author of Vladimir Taltos never touched on this particular story, since it revolved around Vlad's adventures.

A/N I'm a writing junkie, I'm into new things, give me a break or four; I'll need it…so bear with me please; It's my first fanfic. My thanks for your patience.

. : Prologue : .

The little jhereg was flying. Her steel colored scales were only glimpsed in the darkening clouds as she swooped and plunged, accelerating her speed and whipping about in the ever-present wind. One might use the term, 'swoon'. She flew. But to describe her properly, one might say she was soaring over the clouds, her forked tongue flicking over her serpentine muzzle, tasting the air as it forced its way passed her, accommodating her figure as she swam through it. Her leathery wings flexed in the sky, sending her to swirling into the clouds, nose-diving, her small body not longer than three hand-spans long, pointed downward as she plunged headlong into the ground from her altitude. She was elated. As of now, her destiny was set. A destiny, at last!

She swooped low enough that her claws reached out to graze the ground with her marks, the tingles of stalks sprouting proudly from the earth brushing against her underbelly, the air passing around her, fitting her into its pattern of movement: all these things were precious to her. She knew now that she would not wither and die a faceless jhereg, a nobody in the deep jungles of her former home. She was heady with the sensation of accomplishment – despite the fact that she did nothing but follow her inborn instincts. Instinct, one might add, that jheregs learned to endure and heed all years of their life. She had been dubbed a name, as well. So proud she was.

Too proud, one might accuse. Alone in the skies with only her thoughts for company she knew not a word that the others whispered in evil hisses behind her back, condemning her fate with Death, riddling her journey with mortal danger. One hundred and seventy three years of individuality and impetuous youth, vanished in one misfortunate event, preempted by her enemies. Such would be her fate, if she remained in the dark. If only she would open her eyes to the danger suffocating her unbeknownst. If only she would comprehend the deep root of jealousy bred in youths' heart as she walks by. If only she would be less carefree than she was. If, if, if. One might even argue that if it weren't for her young careless attitude with life, she would never have had the ill luck to achieve such a stroke of inspiration and pity, turning a kind heart to a Kynn Leader in disguise, leading to the preposition thatchanged her life, or undergoing the Mystery because of her benevolent behavior towards a faceless stranger. Perhaps she would have lived an old life. Or perhaps she will in spite of all.

She swirled, her jaws open, entertaining the idea of freedom, of simply flying away from the road she was intended, and leaving the young one in need of a Hunter. Such thoughts were banished as quickly as it had been thought, her determination and pride of Honor far too great to even consider flicking her tail a different way and flying Southward. Towards adventure, she traveled, the ground racing below her, the trees a blurry image of green, nothing but the wind and the altitude of any significant importance. Nothing much else mattered but her Destiny. She was Determined.

The steely, metallic taste of determination filled her tongue and sounded loudly in her ears. It was getting dark. She checked her descent to land delicately on the ground, her clawed feet barely imprinting the earth she traveled. She was almost as light as air. Her wings, steely scaled and pale leathery skin, folding above her head as she tread lightly on the ground, her nostrils filling with the unusual scents of the place, filtering all the aromas into separate categories, deciding which route was troublesome and which were useful. Thus she had trained to do.

The area around her was not familiar in the least. Everything was new and she was hard put to keep a stony face and stay on the trail she made. Wandering off would only result in distraction. Distractions always led to failure, and in this particular situation, failure meant death. Even in the falling darkness, she could see the place was riddled with blue. Just blue. This puzzled her enough that she paused in her travels to consider this phenomena, looking at the setting sun and then towards the lurking shadows, trying to understand the complexity that led to blue air. What mist is this? She inhaled deeply, greeted only with unfamiliar scents, and none of them clearing up her confusion. So she settled down and sat, thinking hard on this. She was prone to such inconvenient habits.

The sun sank deeper; its golden light painting the western skies in colors of orange, yellows and faintly, robins blue. Not so deep as the lurking shadows. The encroaching darkness from the east spilt up into the sky in a slow battle that was always won by not-light and always lost as the dawn came to chase the Moons from the sky. Such was the Cycle. As the little jhereg mused on this, Time not deigning to breathe down her neck for speed, the bloody orb of red descended lower over the horizon, sudden flashes of light cascading in a golden shower onto the darkening woods, creating more shadows in its wake as the green forest was swallowed whole by the dark.

Only when her mind had dwelt deeply into the oddity of the blue tinge touching every living thing around her, darkening her own color to a deeper, darker hue, did she come out of her reverie. Her conclusions were conjectures at best, comforting lies at worst. So admitting, she concluded that as a result of the perpetual shadow overcastting the wood, she figured it was due to this and of the angle of the sun that this blue hue was born. But then, she knew with utter certainty that her musings were childish considerations and nothing to be taken too seriously for their idiocy.

Magic must be intertwined with the phenomena, but her thoughts had moved on. Her scales pricked upwards from the sudden drop in temperature and she ran, darting between trees into the place of roots, crags, and green.

The floor was invisible. Not invisible in the usual, magical sense, but hidden under layers of rocks and hidden plants, leaves and vines. Roots entangled together to create the perfect complexity in design, each vine or root writhing alive on the trail, nesting surprises to be avoided, their twitching members hardly figments of the imagination. They writhed together in varicolored tones of brown, green and black, all touched with that fantastical blue of mists hovering over the ground. Large round trunks of pale, pale bark or roughened shells, as wide – or wider – than an Easterner's waist and standing tall clustered in groups, trembled lightly with the aura of the living. Their branches reached high up as if praising the sky for the glorious light it bestows upon the earth, each branch alive with leaves and greenery, all with a slight blush of red on elegant curves of the leaf, blocking out the light even as they praised it. Old, primordial sap running through veins, thickening with the slow beats of the trees' living breath. The trees were alive here. They shared pain, agony, peace and freedom, all warbled into one massive community stretching for miles.

The jhereg paused again, cocking her head against the vibration of breathing as if from one monstrous beast and could not help but quake in her bones from the shuddering sighs of the trees as she passed. She held her wings tightly to her body as if for comfort in the foreign place of singing, breathing trees.

Sprouting from the intricate weaving of life came the strong, smooth green stems that pushed out of the earth's soil and opened into large rounded canopies of leathery material, the huge leaf a pale green with veins of brown sap throbbing with life beneath the skin of the plant. Atop the plant's canopy blossomed a huge flower of the likes the jhereg had never seen until that moment. As of now, it coiled, folding away with the light, its crimson colored petals tucking away from the darkness, hiding in its green shelter. The jhereg tries to imagine what the crimson flower would look like when it opened up to the sun, but could not. It only posed as another riddle to be solved.

She walked around the shoots and trunks of the forest, stepping lightly on the roots and vines, never stepping too long in one place for fear of harming the lifeblood of the realm. She was a mini-creature beside all these tall creations that towered easily over her. She was intimidated by the lack of familiarity and hurried along in the cool atmosphere, feeling dew drops already forming on her still wings and unmoving scales. She feared decay, then.

It smelt of damp woods after a good flooding had passed by, the scents of creatures, plants, soil and mud all churned together into a smell of the graveyard before the dead arrive; a fresh scent of overturned earth in the air that would have lifted her heart had she been in her home. As it was, it only caused discouragement. The jhereg refused to feel fear, even when it was right below the surface, ready to boil over and spill outwards. Verra preserve her. She was very much afraid.

The silence unnerved her a great deal. There were many creatures that were far larger than she, and they crept in this familiar wood, silent as a soft breeze. She imagined their eyes on her and knew only fear. She tried in vain to squelch it when thunder clapped loudly above her, ringing in her eardrums until she thought she must have gone deaf. She let out a squeal as she darted further into the darkened Wood. The sound chased her, its continual rumbling, knotting her stomach and making it churn unpleasantly, bowels clenching tight in fear, her sharp claws digging into the ground.

She dug in her claws and ran faster. It was a unique tool given to her kind by the creator. The sharpened, narrow, needle-like spears on their paws were not used as a means of protection or weaponry – in fact, if weapons were in dire need their poisoned fangs normally kept the creatures at bay long enough to escape. No, the claws had an exceptional use. It was common knowledge that after a meal, jheregs could not fly because of the added weight, and it is because of this they make use their claws. Like Easterners with small spikes in the bottom of their soles for better grip in the ground, the claws allowed the little jhereg a faster, steadier speed with which to run away when chased by predators larger than they themselves were.

The little jhereg put this tool to use and ran for all her little heart, fear pumping in her chest as she tried to outrun the rumbling thunder clapping in the sky, and the flashing of light in the darkened night. Then it began to rain. One would think that with the heavy layers of leaves and branches that it would be relatively dry in the underbrush. One would be sorely mistaken. The first fat drop of rain that slipped through the coverage fell thickly on her head. She started and stumbled forward. Despite her fear, determination burned through everything and she set her jaw, searching thoroughly for any place of shelter.

The rain continued to fall in heavy drops, at irregular times, seeping through the coverage and making the intertwined roots difficult to walk through. Soon, she was trudging through mud and as small as she was, it became an onerous task. She seethed, her chest expanded in an ever-growing anger as her black beady eyes searched the darkness for a place devoid of water, of any form of liquid. Her little eyes were keen in the dark and she absorbed every significant detail as she passed, her wings held above her to shield her as best she could from the rain. This was terrible. This was the darker, morbid part of adventure she had never accounted for.

She looked at creatures off all kinds, trying to stay away from the more dangerous ones simultaneously keeping her stomach from leading her astray from her task. She needed shelter. She would have missed it if it hadn't been for the flash of lightning and clapping thunder that scared her out of her wits for a moment. She charged forward in that moment of mindless fear and collided with a canopy flower. From what she could tell, it seemed to have been knocked over on its side, and then the stench of burnt water reached her nostrils and she almost balked. She was too exhausted to do so, however, and it was this exhaustion that saved her.

The charred stem remained tilted over, the canopy crushed slightly, but still rising above her short frame and curving downward in a low dip, keeping the water at bay. The flower tumbled over and lay in the mud. The rain burnt her eyes and she narrowed them into slits to keep as much rain from them as she was able.

The flower bud was easily three times her size, perhaps four, but again the metallic tasting determination bubbled inside of her, reminding her of her destiny. She cannot die here. So thinking, she snapped her jaws around the bud stem and tugged on it. Stuck fast in the mud, it didn't budge at first, but her poison was spreading uninhibited throughout the wilting flower with moldy flesh, the jhereg was able to pull violently enough to get it to move. She dragged it under the small canopy and allowed herself the small pleasure of smugness. It soon dispersed. She was still wet, hungry, and exhausted.

She chewed on the flower petals, gnawing on the closed flower, using her claws to open it up until it was in wilted shreds, its crimson strips in a decent pile, discolored with patches of decaying brown and burnt black. The little jhereg snuggled among the petals; sleep engulfing her like a huge beast.

-------

Solschia drew her raincoat about her, staring dully at the storm raging around her, her eyes narrowed in annoyance. From the inn came the soft noise of people, speaking together, laughing, drinking, and living. They all breathed with life, each having run from the storm to hide out in the Forbearance Inn. The sound of life running through them made her almost sick, the sensation only heightened by her psionic link with the drunken bastards. Her mind was too great for this. She shut that part of her down, trying to ignore the belching, the farting, and the grinning through yellowed and decaying teeth.

She was seeing only the morbid people in her mind's eye, however, ignoring the silent watchers in the corner, sipping their ale quietly. The boisterous ones always caught her attention. The thunder sounded loudly above them, everyone but the bartender jumping in their skins from the sudden deafening sound that echoed eerily before fading. The rafters were rattling from the brutal force of the winds, the rain at a slant, pegging anyone who dared to stand too far from the Inn's door. Just as Solschia was getting ready to move on and sleep off her growing irritation, the storm had to poke at her one more time. This vindication of the storm was purely psychological, but it mattered little to Solschia, for to her, the storm openly mocked her. She had glimpsed a flying creature on her travels but the storm had come upon her too suddenly to give much more thought to it.

But the storm thought it should remind her of her loss. With a clash of thunder, a blinding streak of light descended from the clouds, zapping its target into a charred ruin. In the seconds after the flash of light, Solschia saw creatures scuttling away, their glacier eyes gleaming from the light before they ran from it. This put her on edge, and she ground her teeth together in further annoyance, working into outright fury.

She had intended to go hunting today. There were rumors of Yendis and Chreothas roaming the woods and Solschia had wanted their hides to dry on her rack. They would have made great trophies. Not anymore.

"Solschia, glaring won't make it go away. You should relax and have some wine!" a young, rather handsome man said to her, standing shakily from his seat to lurch towards her, parting from the small knot of people playing cards. He placed his arm around her neck and grinned at her. He emphasized his point by hoisting the mug of wine in one hand up toward her lips. She turned her face away from him, her eyes hardening, unamused by his antics.

"Don't make me kill you Aryne." Was her only open reply to him.

"You wouldn't kill your only brother, would'ya?" he was still grinning drunkenly. She plucked the mug from his hands and poured it on the floor, looking at him challengingly as she tossed the mug aside.

"Try me." Her voice was cold with pent-up fury.

Aryne reddened in sudden explosive anger; his emotional control always disappeared when he was getting tipsy. "I've had enough of this shit, Solschia. Just because you are irritable and grumpy does not mean you have to grump and snap at me!" he huffed and cursed her in sailor's argot before pulling the mug from the floor and chucking it at her. His aim had always been near impeccable and it hit her on her cheek before gravity took its toll and it fell with a clatter to the floor. She froze, unmoving for a moment. It seemed Aryne hadn't been as drunk as she thought. She glared at him and he sneered in reply, taunting her silently. "Piss off Solschia." And he walked away, turning his entire back to her. That alone was an insult to her ability.

As mature as she liked to view herself as, her brother had always been able to urge her to childish behavior and without a thought she lunged at him, her arms locking around his neck, her weight bringing him down to the floor as he struggled in her lock. Her knee spread his legs apart to keep him from getting leverage, but she had forgotten her brother's resilience. As she was struggling to get her knee between his legs to keep them spread, his chin had been digging into her arms, until it was his mouth against her arms, not the vulnerable flesh of his neck. He jerked his body to the side, pushing off of the floor and slithering in her hold, his legs sliding over her knees and locking around her hips, rolling them both violently to the side. They were both jarred, but Aryne was the first to recover as he pinched his sister's weak spot in the flesh of her upper arm.

Her grip loosened considerably and his arms were ready for it. He grabbed her and held her down, his drunkenness gone as if it had never been. He looked at once annoyed and delighted. He kissed her nose. "Oh, Sister. You can beat the shit out of me in staves, fencing, and probably even daggers, but wrestling and grappling has never been your strong suit." He tut-tutted at her and in the face of his condescension she kneed him in the groin. Even in the awkward position, he stiffened and she used the moment to push him off violently. She stood haughtily.

He was pushed several feet away and he made a small sound, very faint as he curled on his side, looking balefully up at her, from the floorboards. Again she forgot her brother's resilience. He muttered. "I need a drink." And he hauled himself to his feet slowly, ignoring her anger, picking up the thrice-dropped mug and handing it to the bartender. He refilled it. Aryne nodded thanks. "You know Solschia, you are one very mean bitch."

"We go hunting in the morning. Get ready." Solschia said into the silent inn, her voice cold and distant. She turned then and walked towards the room she shared with her brother. She left Aryne sitting back at a cards table, looking rather smug for a person who had gotten kicked in the groin.

"Yes Ma'am." Was his only flippant reply as he picked up his cards again and peered at the combinations he could make. He had the potential for a winning hand – especially because he felt his luck was on him.

In another bout of childish anger she took off her boot and threw it at him. Even though her aim wasn't as true as her brother's it hit his head. He shook his head to rid of the blurry vision tilting his chair to lean on its two hind legs he yelled after her receding form. "BITCH!"

She made a gesture that set him laughing and the chair slammed down to all fours. He took another swig before settling down to play. In the next four hours he won a well-preserved bow, several dozen arrows and information concerning the wild creatures roaming the haunted wood. In the last four hours he lost several imperials to drinks and a nicely made dagger, which he was never able to win back. All in all, he did well, and was well pleased by the time he struggled up to the room, still rather fuzzy around the edges as result of the mugs and mugs of drink he had consumed in the duration of his playing streak, and stumbled up the stairs and opened the door. He had intended to fall into bed and sleep it all off before true morning came.

As he stepped inside he was drunk enough, and it was late enough, or early depending on the perspective, that he was a little slow to take in his surroundings. He looked around, starting on his left – for he had always been prone to his left hand – and listed the things in his head. _Door, dresser, bed, carpet, window, bed, table._

A moment passed as he stared dully at the room before his mind awoke to find someone conspicuously absent. He ground his teeth and started cursing, fluently, looking at the missing equipment and coming to the obvious conclusion that his sister was an idiot, a hotheaded, prideful idiot. He looked at the closed window and crossed his arms, unsure whether or not he should go after her. _Served her right if I didn't…._

Despite these thoughts, he knew as well as she, that he would follow. Not only had he sworn – and thus he would become an oath breaker otherwise – but also it was his weakness to follow his sister into the torrid streams of hell. He just loved her so.

He grabbed one of his many loose white shirts and pulled it over his head, having taken off his grubby brown one. Taking off his current pants he pulled on another set of darkened lambskin and tucked them into his hunting boots. Once dressed he ambled over to the closet, rolling his eyes and still muttering about her idiocy when he opened the closet door and pulled out a trunk from the back. It was roughly about five by one by two hand-spans and fit in near perfect union with his traveling horse. He rummaged in his pocket and took out a set of keys, flipping through them idly as he looked for the correct one. The little silver key was inserted and the trunk popped open smoothly. Inside were weapons; his favorite little toys.

"Aliera is going to be mighty pissed." He muttered irritably as he strapped on his long pointed daggers to his forearms, buckling its sheathe so it wouldn't chafe as he moved. Once satisfied he slid a saber down his back in its spine sheathe, one dagger in each boot, and strapped the two sheathes to his thighs, sliding one long pointed dagger in each sheathe. With a sigh he took out his fencing sword and slid it home at his belt. Taking up his raining coat he put the hood over his brown hair and with a wry twist of his lips, opened the window and leapt out of it, landing at the bottom with a mud sinking _plop. _

"Solschia is going to owe me, BIG time." He muttered similar things repeatedly as he walked through the mud going towards the Wood. Sometimes he wished he never thought so much like his sister. It was prone to happen, since they had shared the same womb. She had been born five minutes before him, which makes her the older, but it never ceased to unnerve her when he had been the better at wrestling or grappling or at the bow and crossbow. Her aim wasn't up to match with his. Aryne thought it was ridiculous that she had to be the better because she was the older, but it was true in many ways. He sighed again, at once glad of this psionic link with her, and hating it at the same time. Without it, he could be his own man with a reputable skill; with it, he could only be one half of a whole. But a weapon was a weapon no matter how off center it made one feel.

He stood at the edge of the forest, looking in, holding the raining coat tightly against him, glaring much like she had been doing earlier, at the rain. Hunting was all well and good, but he wasn't of the ill sense. He didn't want to die. In fact Solschia had diagnosed him a worrier. In his opinion it was ridiculous. A stranger might think otherwise, watching him stand at the edge of the Wood, looking in with accusation.

Taking hold of the link between him and his sister, he felt it out, reaching out to her. _"Solschia? Where are you?" _Was the psionic call he cast out toward her.

There was no answer. He felt the psionic link, lying inside of them, a mental connection that allowed them communication. He also knew she was purposefully ignoring him. That grated on his nerves. _"Solschia, my oath!" _He shouted mentally at her. There was still no response. No response, at all. He felt around, knew her alive, and plunged deeper into the link, struggling to find the problem.

Then he fell to his knees. The psionic link between the two was tight and deep rooted enough that what happened to one, affected the other. If he didn't hurry, both their minds would be burned out, irreparably damaged. He ran. Forgetting the rain and the coat flapping wildly around him, he ran, his eyes squinted against the torrent of rain falling from the sky. He screamed for her, his voice getting hoarse from raising it above the loud drum of rain and he sent psionic after psionic calls, desperately asking for her to answer.

No reply came. He stumbled over the roots, cursing the trees and ducking once in a while under the canopied Stylias. The crimson flowers had always annoyed him, since they came up to his ear level. He was forced to duck under them, getting further soaked as he bent his 5'8 frame, his brown hair plastered to his face. The rain hid his tears as he searched for his sister.

He prayed not to get caught in a Chreothas web as he floundered in the wood, disoriented. He saw nothing but green and brown, the shadows hiding details that may have allowed him to find his sister. As it was, nothing was forthcoming.

Thunder sounded above him, startling him as he trudged on, struggling not to run. "Solschia!" he cupped his hands around his mouth to further enhance the sound, letting out a strangled cry as he listened and heard nothing. Unable to see the ground properly, his foot snagged on an upraised root, and he fell face forward into the roots, the slimy coverage from the rain smearing all over him and he hauled himself slowly to his feet. It was four in the morning. Dawn should be coming soon. "I need a drink." He muttered, pulling the coat around him, all slick with mud, sap and moss smeared on his face.

He took two steps forward without looking and the ground gave below him. He had stumbled across the slight gorge and he slid on his back, screaming the entire way as he fell down those many feet, the darkness keeping sight from him. He knew not when he would stop. He was only aware of the mud clogging up his pants, the soles of his shoes wearing thin, the roots and vines and hidden rocks jamming into his body as he sped past them on his back. The wind was howling with him, screaming as he screamed, terror racing in his heart as he rushed headlong down the steep incline without a thought to how to **_stop. _**Whip-like branches were swatting him; scratching his face as he moved passed and his head hit a rock for the fifth time. This time, he blacked out momentarily, the world spinning out of control as he lost sensation of his body.

He woke mere moments later with the sensation of vertigo still imprinted on his body. Everything was still black, but it was not the blackness of unconsciousness but of darkness, of not-light. His body ached from the recent beating of nature, his body facedown, and he pushed with his left arm off of the ground. He pushed hard enough that he rolled onto his back, his lungs breathing heavily. He groaned and curled onto his side. His head throbbed with a massive headache circumnavigating the wound in his head, rushing outward in painful ripples whenever he moved or even twitched a muscle in his face. Aryne's body was bruised and numb from cold. Pain was too small a word for it. 'Agonized exhaustion' was perhaps the correct phrase. He moaned again, unable to keep the sound from passing his lips and his mind fluttered at the edge of unconsciousness. One conscious thought escaped him before he passed from the world of reality and into his dreams. He was safe for the moment.

-----

Light trickled through the leaves. Rays of sunshine sent glorious golden waves towards the heap of a person, shedding light into the shadows and dispersing them, banishing them until the night came again. The day was just beginning. The person lying in a hapless heap wore a muddied raincoat, curled in a mangled way, his eyes screwed shut in pain as he slept. His hair was brown; his face clearly handsome despite the caked mud and grime hiding his features. His body lean and not so tall as one would expect. Then he groaned again and blinked milky blue eyes at the sunshine, bolting upright after a moment.

He was sitting upright for several long moments, struggling to remember why he wasn't at the Forbearance Inn, sleeping in a cozy, warm bed. Or more accurately, why he was bashed and beaten, disheveled and disoriented in a wooded area he didn't recognize. An answer for any of these would have been most appreciated, then. Fate or the Gods were disinclined to answer him. A wriggling thought wormed its way in his mind and he whispered, "Solschia." Before his mind woke with a start and he lurched to his feet.

He fell down rather suddenly, jarring his already beaten body further. His head still pained but he pushed passed the mundane aches of the body and stood – admittedly a little shakily – and tried to grab onto the psionic link to his sister. He found it, a bare thread pulsing in his mind. He reached for it, sending out warm fuzzy feelings, trying to keep it alive as he looked around the area he found himself in. He needed to get out.

What he found was rather discouraging. Surrounding him was a naturally made v-valley. A river had flowed through this place, once upon a time. Not so, anymore. He wondered if he should have been grateful. The commonly found roots, branches, and vines woven together above the ground were at least a sign he hadn't left the area he had been at previously. The tree trunks were darker than the pale, smooth flesh of the trees' predecessors and the leaves were similar in shape, size and color. The difference was in the texture, where as the ones closer to the inn were smooth and soft, these were leathery, like bat wings. Small things only noticed by hunters or trackers. Even the Stylias were sprouting proudly from the ground. The closest wall to him, inclined steeply, was barely climbable and he despaired of trying it with his aching body. He looked to the other side. The valley swooped downward considerably before rising up to the incline horizontal with the wall nearest him. Then it rose steeper or just as steep as the closest wall. He was trapped.

"_Solschia, help me find you." _He said to her psionically.

The answer was small and tentative but he locked onto it, his relief just as palpable. He saw rocks protruding from the vined slope and following the direction indicated – his focused mind was like a compass with Solschia both the needle and the destination – and pulled on the vine experimentally. It held – barely. Clenching his fist in a bout of concern he clutched the vine and hauled himself up the first two feet before planting his feet solidly against the protruding rock. Using any crag at his disposal he kicked his foot in the tight niches and straining his sore thighs he slowly scaled the wall. Once, he missed the vine and skidded down many feet before his shoulder and armpit got snagged in a looped, tangled vine. His knees had locked from the jarring and now they, too, hurt.

He reached up and found nothing but air. He tried not to look down and temptation won. He almost lost his balance when he craned his neck to look down and lost his footing from the mental freeze it had given him. He felt the cold wind gusting behind his neck. He shivered in fear before he grasped the taut vine and heaved himself up. His eyes peaked over the lip of the gorge and nearly fainted from lightheadedness. He had made it. He kicked with his foot and swung his body over the ledge. Rolling over and onto his back he rested his right hand and wrist on his forehead, breathing harshly from the unsought for exertion it had caused him. He cursed his sister for the mess she had made…and then felt ashamed. They were too intimately linked at the moment to feel anything but love and worry for her.

When he had caught his breath and a semblance of strength had returned to his limbs he rose to his feet and pitched forward following the line towards his sister. He found her, eventually. She was breathing as harshly as he had been, her hair not the dark brown of his own, but a pale, pale yellow, nearly white in the golden light cascading through the meshed branches above them, leaving her awash in golden light. His breath jammed in his throat and he dropped to his knees next to her. Her breathing was shallow. He touched her tentatively, recoiling as if struck by the sound it had produced and biting the inside of his cheek he pushed her over onto her back. Her skin was filled with green and brown decay. Poison.

He looked around, warily. There weren't supposed to be any of _them _around here. Solschia's eyes fluttered open and saw him but they held no recognition – no matter that they had been together since their birth, a part of each other always inside of them. She seemed to gather herself and he felt the slightest of tingling on the psionic link they shared. It was an image and he forced it to grow in size, memorizing it, the picture sent to him burning his soul, branding him for life. Then she breathed again. Once, twice…none. He looked at her dully, watching her blue eyes glaze over in death. She had cut the link that had kept her alive with him.

Taking a shuddering breath he took out his one of his daggers and pressed the point of it into his blue and discolored hand. Blood, as red as the crimson Stylias, pooled in his palm. He dipped his pinky in it and traced sacred designs on her face, starting with her forehead and tracing slowly down her cheeks and around her mouth, to end at her throat. Text written to one another at one's passing. He made the same design on his own face, following memory and reflex, his heart empty. Aryne looked at his sister and leaned down, keeping the tears from falling and laid a gentle kiss on her dead lips.

"Goodbye, my dearest one." He said softly to her and laid his raining coat over his sister. He was standing when he noticed the bite that had killed her, vile poison blackening her veins as she died. His anger and gorge rose with him and he made another oath, another vow.

He stood and slipped the dagger into its sheathe and began searching for the Forbearance Inn. There he intended to get some sleep and food. He vowed to kill the little creature that had murdered his sister. A little steely creature that was already dead, but did not yet know it. His target would be the jhereg with the broken wings. He would kill it. Or else he would be foresworn.


	2. Now

Fate's Hand

Disclaimer: this world belongs to Steven Brust, but most of the characters in it will be my creation, since the author of Vladimir Taltos never touched on this particular story, since it revolved around Vlad's adventures.

A/N I'm a writing junkie, I'm into new things, so give me a break or four; I'll need it…so bear with me please; It's my first fanfic. My thanks for your patience.

------

**The Two Trees **

Beloved, gaze in thine own heart,

Gaze no more in the bitter glass,

The demons with their subtle guile.

Lift up before us when they pass,

Or only gaze a little while,

For there a fatal image grows,

That the stormy night receives,

Roots half hidden under snows,

Broken boughs and blackened leaves.

For ill things turn to barrenness

In the dim glass the demons hold,

The glass of outer weariness,

Made when God slept in times of old.

There, through the broken branches, go

The ravens of unresting thought,

Crying, flying, to and fro,

Cruel claw and hungry throat.

Or else they stand and sniff the wind

And shake their ragged wings; alas!

Thy tender eyes grow all unkind.

Gaze no more in the bitter glass.

WB Yeats

-----

. : Beginning : .

She woke feeling groggy, her beady black eyes blinking in the morning light. She rolled her head, watching idly as the leaves rustled, and one or two falling from the branch, lying delicately on the grassy ground outside her cave. Her memories were still foreign and she yawned, her sharp canines flashing as she rolled onto her back, stretching. Her mind was slowly waking up. She moved one paw and then the other before deciding she could stand and pushed off the ground. Her nest was made of flower petals; it comforted her, when she dreamed of the most dangerous journey of her young life. They were not the crimson red of the Stylias but the pastel violet of Gorgas. Huge flowers that grew to her eye level, the violet flower blooming only at night, tracking the moon's path as the sunflowers did the sun.

Remembering the Hunter and the Storm, she shivered, her wings bursting open as she relished their function. Once upon a time, they had not worked. But that was passed. Thirty-one years passed, to be precise. She would be two hundred and five years of age this coming spring. As it was, it was autumn and she lived in the far reaches of the world, waiting for the call.

She had fallen in love with this little niche far from the poison of Easterners. She flexed her steely wings as she trotted out of her home and into the glorious morning. Everything was alight with life and she overjoyed herself. But there was a yearning inside of her as things opened and expanded. It was almost time. She wondered who it would be this time, which would struggle for her or chirp arrogantly, who would try to mount her, to make life stir inside of her. Who indeed. This at once excited her and troubled her. Would they be worthy of the destiny she led? Would they spawn healthy babes? Would it matter?

The deciduous forest expanded before her, tall pine trees pointed toward the sky, maples and oaks sprinkled through out, spreading large, thick branches, shedding leaves. The time of death was near as well. Winter would come to cleanse the earth and allow it to be reborn. But first, food.

In the expanse of red and yellow forest, widening for miles; of deadening leaves and stiff needles still pointed and exclaiming their existence, she spread her wings and lifted off, her scales glinting. No jhereg lived here but her. Not many creatures that hunted, either. She flew, pumping her leathery wings, the wind carrying her higher and higher as she scanned the forest below. The rush of air dulled her nose, but her keen eyesight sought out the target she wanted. She waited, circling lazily in the breezy currents, looping around idly as she watched and waited. It would be coming sooner or later; all she had to do was wait and watch. Observe the life circling in living veins, waiting for one to burst or to stop, ending the life.

She flew.

The sky grew brighter, the brilliant blue glinting off her scales, her shadow circling on the deadening forest below her. It followed her and she squinted, watching as another creature of wings spread its feathers and lifted off. She groaned to herself even as a rage of battle awoke inside of her. Birds of prey. It flew directly towards her, its feathered wings pumping wildly as it raced towards her. She was an invader and unlike jheregs, birds of prey would easily kill its potential conquerors and eat it for breakfast. Golden rays rose, the sun shining in their eyes as it ascended into its cycle. The bird called, the jhereg waited, watching it come nearer.

When the bird was a handful of spans away, its talons unsheathed, the jhereg dipped under and folded its wings and plummeted downward, spiraling down. She narrowed her eyes against the onslaught of air and went down. The bird followed closely; its screech of indigence echoing in the jhereg's ears. She shuddered from the sound and opened her wings, the wind catching in her leathery folds and like an easterner's parachute she was pulled upwards with the current, darting passed the bird. It flapped its wings, frantically off balance with its talons still directed below. The bird's heart almost burst as it struggled upwards towards the jhereg, refusing to give up its place as Hunter of its domain.

The bird managed to bank and caught a swift air current dipping down before beating its wings upward, rising with surprising velocity. It was definitely not a hatchling; pity. The jhereg didn't wait for courtesy's sake and flapped her wings rising above the bird, rising above the clouds, using the rapid air currents to carry her upward, coasting most of the way up. The bird struggled behind, but gained on her nonetheless. Its beaked had opened and dug into her tail when she flapped her wings on a burst of speed and flipped to her back, coming around in an agile circle, her claws grasping the bird.

It struggled. It struggled as all animals struggle when they scent death is near. Its wings beat viciously at the jhereg as she clutched the bird to her chest, spiraling down, her wings pressed tightly against her back. Her scaled body fell with growing speed to the ground, her serpentine head swiveling towards the bird, her jaws opening and biting deeply into its feathered flesh. After several frantic heartbeats the bird went limp in death and the jhereg let the creature go, unfolding her wings, the wind buffeting her wings as she banked.

She checked her flapping suddenly, her tail and hind legs helping her descent. Her paws clutched the thin branch, her wings held proudly above her in triumph as she clucked softly to herself. She wrapped her tail around her for inspection and eyed the wound with aggravation. She deprecated herself in a long vein of chirps and clucks, her forepaws delicately sorting through the wound, inspecting it closely. She needed to be certain it wouldn't fester or grow grievous in nature, especially with potential mates scouring the world for her and others. She crooned over her tail for several minutes trying to rid of the memory of her wings.

As though in mockery of her struggle, a phantom flash of pain seared through her left wing where the wound have been. Where a hunter had dragged a knife six inches long through its leathery membrane and into her side. That night had left an imprint on her and she searched her domain daily for invaders or threats, only deigning to sleep when she was certain she would be safe. Otherwise she left, no matter how tired or fatigued she was, and sought out safer shelter. It had been a lesson that brought nothing but nightmares and darkness to her soul. Her sole light in her life was her destiny. A destiny given to her to fulfill, which had yet to reveal itself in its entirety.

Then her stomach grumbled its ignoble protests, uncompromising in the face of her musing. She stretched her wings again, flexing them once before trusting them to carry her – as she had since that nightmare decades ago – and took off, swooping down and then escalating upwards. She scoured the sky, taking up her vigil once again.

It was merely an hour later that her breakfast had arrived. It arrived in the form of a surprise. She almost balked thinking of it. …How could it be? A dzur? She almost flew away again, her heart racing with untamable thoughts. The Dzur Mountain was far from this place; too far for a lone dzur to travel. Then again, she had traveled as far – if not more. She argued with herself as she perched on a branch regarding the dead dzur with interplay of curiosity, disdain and suspicion.

Her stomach wasn't so picky. It growled scornfully at her and she swooped down, standing delicately on its massive shoulder, lowering her serpentine muzzle to sniff along its hide. She bit at it, her poisoned fangs sinking into the thick skin, saturating in the dead carcass. Her stomached grumbled again and she let go of her inborn suspicion and cut a long line with her claws and jaws, digging under towards the meaty flesh underneath. She sniffed it once more, her tongue flicking over it, wavering a moment before taking a hunk of its flesh and lifting her neck and head upwards as she swallowed.

Her feeding lasted another hour as she chewed through the thick hide and tore pieces of the dzur's body. When she was certain she would need no more food for several days she went to spread her wings when scavengers of all kinds began to flock towards her, cawing viciously as if warning her off. She gargled at them, sending a psionic sneer as she lifted off. She was done, anyway.

She didn't make it far before her wings folded beneath her and she flopped to the ground. After eating she couldn't fly, her weight was too much for her wings to bear. Looking around the forest she stepped lightly, loping off with her wings still extended above her, toward her cave. The trees raced passed her and the turn off towards her cave reappeared before she made a compulsive decision.

She stopped and looked towards her home, her den, and then turned off in the opposite direction, trotting over game trails and leaping over fallen logs. She was happy for the moment. And then the stream came into view.

It was a small stream, flowing over smooth rocks, weaving throughout the entire forest to empty out into the salty sea. The water was clear, the rocks grey and blue, grass and pondweeds sprouting upward from the earth, surrounding the running water. This was the more shallow section of the stream before it deepened into a blue mystery that carried you swiftly under into death.

She pranced over to a protruding rock and clucking to herself she dipped her body in the water, straying close to the shore. If she hadn't eaten first she would have floated as a bird would, but her weight had risen – ever so slightly – with the meal and she stayed where she could reach, dipping her head in the water and shivering her wings. She clucked over herself through it all, making certain she glistened in the sun. The water was cold and the edges were full of leaves fallen from the trees. Everything around her was alive with soft sounds, the sun shining warmly on her scales. It was a warm autumn day and she felt energetic.

A shadow passed over her from above and she looked up, eyes narrowing. What she saw stilled her heart. It was far too early but the shape was far too similar to hers to be anything but a jhereg. A male jhereg if she was lucky. He seemed a little large for a male but she watched him with her eyes, her body quieting, not a muscle moving as she stilled. The sounds were the same in the forest but in the noise was a sense of foreboding and in that well of unease, her scales lifted, the water sloshing over her body. Her head moved from side to side, looking about her, wondering at the new stranger in her forest. A confrontation was in order if the jhereg was female; if male, then…who knew the possibilities.

She felt in her bones, however, it was not to be a mate but an enemy. At that moment a branch snapped ominously as if in mocking. She shuddered as a sudden chill descended her spine and she loped off into the forest, her wings held against her protectively as she sought out her home.

-----

A man of forty or so years leaned against the wall in one of the random bar houses, his eyes slits as he watched everyone through narrowed eyesight. He feigned indifference allowing the sounds to wash over him and the smells intoxicate him. A shadow passes over him, momentarily blocking out the lamps and he opened one eye to regard the stranger in front of him. A pang of guilt hit him in the stomach as he looked at her. She was thin, pale, blond haired and blue eyed, but her eyes were intense and challenging. But she wasn't _her, _so he squashed the bloodguilt in his heart and remained passively lying against the wall, his chair, tipped on the two hind legs.

"What do you want?" He asked gruffly, his brown eyebrows drawing together in annoyance.

She looked rather surprised, her blond brows shooting up, arching over her wide blue eyes. "I want a job, and I was told you were the one to see about it."

He didn't look too pleased at the prospect and turned his head, glaring blue eyes at a bunch of drunken people. It sent them giggling over each other, groping the table for their drinks and taking another swallow. The drink was imperative; without it, they wouldn't have had the courage to look back at him. He knew this well, and shifted his glaring gaze back to the woman standing aggressively in front of him. "What can I do for you, ma'am?" the last was a flippant remark; hardly conscious but the hardening look in the woman's eyes said she would take offense. Personally.

"I know how to kill, and I know how be stealthy if the time comes. Best of all, I can whore, so if a target is male, there is always an easy way for simple access." Her voice was cold and distant as if the thought of whoring her body for the kill didn't really bother her much; as though her body was just another tool to be used and cleaned up afterwards.

He sniggered in disgust. "I don't associate with whores. Shove off." He gestured with his hand and took a wide-rimmed hat from the table and placed it on his head, tipping it forward to obscure his eyes and leaned back ignoring her promptly.

There was a long silence and then he heard the scrape of a chair and figured she had left, but he had underestimated her as he had once his sister. He winced inside at the comparison. It was nearly impossible to not compare the two lovely ladies, but he was shameful nonetheless. And worse, he had been wrong. Without the psionic link he had not become his own man. Indeed, he wished every waking moment of his life that he was one half of a whole, to belong wholly to one person in partnership. But the passed was passed and he sighed.

The woman regarded him curiously, noting that he was older than she had expected for the famed hunter he was said to have been. His brown hair was cut shorter than the style currently was, falling in waves to ear level, streaks of silver belying his age despite his shape. She blushed scarlet thinking of his shape. He was two decades older than her, at least, and she scorned herself for even entertaining the thought. But he was a hunter and was in great shape. _Muscle tone is everything, _she mused to herself, still looking at him. His clothes only agreed with her. All leather with straps and buckles it encased his entire body from mid-palm – it had a thumbhole where his thumb protruded - to shoulders, chest, waist and legs, tucking into black hunting boots. It dipped a little at the collar, exposing the hollow of his throat. His hat was tipped over his head but she remembered those blue eyes of his as he regarded her with suspicion and mistrust and then with disgust at the word 'whore'.

The moment passed by and she began to wonder if he had fallen asleep after all, or if it was all a hoax. He still had the remnants of a youthful beauty that had blossomed and then faded with age. There was slight growth of a beard on his chin and up the sides of his jaw line, yet to be touched by silver. Then he sighed heavily and she startled, the chair screeching back. He moved forward, tipping the hat back and the chair slammed onto all fours with a loud crack of wood.

He looked at her and then said, "Why are you still here?"

His question surprised her, obviously and he smiled wryly when she flustered and said harshly, "Because you didn't point out whether or not you'd give me a job." She sounded so righteous that he laughed. She looked pissed. He laughed all the harder. The laughter transformed him into something far more youthful and less robust and flawed by experience. He seemed more real and she flushed scarlet again.

One of the drunken people playing cards looked over at her and sneered laughing, "hey chickie, didn't ya know! Aryne here hunts phantoms, there ain't nothing to kill when you hunt with him!" he laughed so hard he almost lost his balance. He giggled, trying not to teeter over as friends of the same drink laughed, steadying him.

As for Aryne, well, his blood rage exploded over his skin and he jumped over the table, storming over to the drunken bastard who's his fearlessness was due to alcohol and not courage. A knife appeared out of his many makeshift sheathes and it cut deeply into the man's neck, Aryne getting sprayed with blood, his teeth grounding as he plunged the knife into the man's neck, slitting him from ear to bloody ear, silent and seething. The other drunks met his sickly look with fear and they all stumbled to their feet, standing trying to back away while talking. Most were unsuccessful and landed in a heap on the floor before they hauled themselves up.

"This! This is not a phantom!" Aryne shouted at them and unsnapped the buckle on his right arm, pulling down the sleeve to reveal a huge sickly scar that curled down his arm and disappeared into the rest of his unique outfit. One of the drunks had been far slower than the others and it was him that Aryne grabbed by the hair, baring his neck taut and glaring down with ice blue eyes. "What I hunt killed my world."

He would have killed the man right then and there had not the blond woman that reminded him so much of Solschia grabbed his arm and tugged at him, urging him away before the guards came. The bartender was waving around his weapon threatening the mid-forty year old man to let go of his customer, and calling the guards for support.

Aryne let go of the man and spat at him, kicking him in the back before allowing himself to be hauled away by the blue-eyed woman, grabbing his hat before departing with her. He was still in his blood rage and tried to cool it unsuccessfully. "Water." He said, his voice thick with rage and disdain.

She glanced back annoyed and said sharply, "what?"

He only repeated, tightening his control over his anger, trying not to hurt the woman for making him repeat himself. He was always irritable to a fault when he went through these episodes. "Water. I need water."

"Of all the…Verra preserve us." She said and told him to wait. He rolled his eyes and pulled the hat down further, noticing for the first time the bloodied dagger still in his hands. He thought he had left it behind, and was glad he hadn't. He was equally glad he was wearing black leather for the splattered blood didn't show too much on it, but his face was a red ruin of others' blood. He wiped his face with his sleeve; looking at the long dragging scar the vile carcass eater had given him and buckled it savagely. He didn't want to remember without a drink…and he didn't drink anymore.

He was wiping his bloody dagger on his pant leg, inspecting it, when the woman came back, pausing – almost checking – at the sight of him. He only looked at her and slipped the dagger into its hidden sheath in the leather folds of his forearm. She handed him water and he took it guzzling half of it. Then he stopped, freezing as though he had just run out of batteries. He didn't move for a long time, frozen that way, just staring at the wall, the water held in his left hand.

"…umm….Aryne….?" the woman asked hesitantly.

He snapped to life at the mention of his name and looked at her with mistrust and then poured some water in his hand and wiped it over his face, brow and hair, placing his hat on his head again. He poured the rest of the water on the floor and tipped his hat. "Thank you ma'am." The remark still seemed rather flippant, and he walked away.

Before she thought otherwise she lunged at him, grabbing him around one of his leather arms, "take me with you."

He looked incredulous. And she said to him, "I don't have a home, my world was killed too-"

He shoved her off looking outraged, "how _dare_ you even try to assume your world was crushed as mine was? You want to whore, go the brothels. They'll take a pretty woman like you."

His words cut her deep and she bit her lower lip, trying not to cry. "I'm only 16. They won't take me. Please! I don't want to be alone anymore…" she whispered the last.

He looked on annoyed. "You have to have family, go to them."

She almost burst into tears then, but she squared her shoulders and shook her head, "no, we were raided, pillaged and burned. I-I…."

The image began to take shape in his mind, despite his efforts to rid of it. "You weren't there, were you?" The question was more of a statement.

She licked her lips and looked away from his eyes, guilt heavy inside of her. "N-no. I had run away with my…. friend. They hadn't liked him and had kicked him out, and when I came back two days later…I found them. It was horrible…!" she tried unsuccessfully to retell it like it was just a story, and not necessarily hers, but it drew her in and she remembered, being drawn into her memories as she told him falteringly of how they had rejected her young lover and had banished him from the town for being a river rat. He had scaled the walls and she had run away with him…only to return with her sense two nights later. There was something amiss with the night – although she could never tell why. Perhaps it was the smell, or the way the light of the moon glinted slightly, perhaps mourning. Who knew what the moon's thought was.

Then the stench of carnage, of burnt meat saturating the air, lingering in the place of death; An entire graveyard seemed to be upturned…but it wasn't the cemetery or defilement of the old dead, but of the new. Bodies that had been living only a day before ceased to exist in this plane, lying limp across the streets, over the benches, through the windows, bent over, exposed, curled up tightly, knives, daggers, javelins, or axes imbedded in their heads, stomachs, thighs, any place worthy of scavengers. It had been thoughtless slaughter.

All the stores had been looted and burned, the smoke still curling idly off of the wood and cement. Bodies littered the ground, everywhere, townsmen and women, children huddling together in massacre, a dog clutched tightly in a young man's arms, eyes slashed, all far from the serene state of death. They would linger forever in this haunted place. Some were burned from the fire...and then she stumbled over a rope. She fell to her knees and it took her a moment to realize the rope was not a rope, but someone's entrails. She followed the long line of intestine to see a sight that rose the gorge and bile in her stomach. A man hung, swinging from his children's intestines, their bloody hands reaching out, legs shackled to a post as they watched the hanging of their father. She moved to the side and her knees became water, collapsing into a nerveless heap. Their mother, Miss Elia Salota had been pregnant and happy as a contented baby. She remembers Elia's vibrant smile and fresh baked cookies.

The woman had been spitted. Like an animal, a pole had been jammed through her body, down her throat through her chest and out her anus. She had been spitted and hung over a fire to be cooked, her baby roasted along with her. The embers of the fire had died down now, but the stench was overwhelming and tears stung the young woman's eyes as she gasped and sobbed, finally losing the battle and her stomach heaved, curling and vomiting all of the contents of her body.

She knew all these people. She knew the clerk whose head have been split open by an ax and his daughter – her friend – who had been slit across the throat and lay across the counter, her ass exposed, dry semen still clinging to her skin in clumps. How many times, the woman wondered, had they raped her and heard her screams? She almost wretched, again.

She wondered if this was the treatment given to peasants, what had they done to her family – who owned a rather large household and lands. What of them? She scrambled up and away from the morbid scene, running towards her house, jumping over bodies laying in her way, pushing at the hanged corpses that blocked her. She ran. And had run towards her home with the insane hope that her family would be missing, having been searching for her these two days. The hope only increased as she ran to her house and saw it burned but no corpses of the slain lay there.

But her hope was dashed away quickly when she entered her home and saw with her own eyes the fate of her household. Her mother and her two sisters were chained, side by side, to the wall, their arms held above their heads, their feet dangling only two inches from the floor. A large dagger was sheathed to the hilt in her chest where her heart laid, blood drying in thick rivulets on her skin. Her mother's hair was shorn and her shirt had been opened, cut open to reveal her breasts, teeth marks set in several circles of red and blue. Claw marks ran down her abdomen and bruises in the vague shape of man's hand imprinted in her sides.

With a cry of rage and desperate melancholy, she threw herself at her mother, hugging her, and wishing she hadn't when the rest was revealed. Her back was filled with burns as though from an electric rod. Her skirt had been pushed up and she saw bruises in places she never wanted to see. Her mother's labia had been cut off, a knife seeming to have been jammed inside of her, torn tissue. She stumbled back from her mother and swallowed the gorge that rose in her throat, looking at her mother's eyes…and realizing they have been removed as well. This was too awful, but she was determined to see to everyone.

Her sister was also chained, a knife still in her throat. It had been shoved in her mouth and cut its way into her throat, killing her. Her sister's half-formed breasts had been cut off, leaving nothing but a bloody ruin. The young woman cried, looking at the defilement as the rape having taken place.

The young woman moved away, unable to see the extent of the damage done to her sister, and looked towards Raya, her youngest sister. Raya's face was split in half by a weapon of some kind, like a large blade whose hilt was missing. Her neck was split open and looked like another mouth flapping open. Liquid had oozed down her bare chest and little unformed waist, drying in a thick layer on her skin. Her entire left side had been burned, her skin ruptured and cracked, blackened to a crisp. The stench was nauseating and the young woman fled from the room.

She stumbled into the kitchen to see her father hanging from the ceiling. Something thick and wet held him by the neck, his arms tied, eyeless and bald. He hadn't been bald in life, but in death they had shorn his hair as well as his dignity. His pants at first hid the obvious fact that he was now one-legged. Underneath his swaying body a puddle of his blood was still wet and runny. It spread towards her foot as though sensing her presence and she backed away from it frantically, tripping over an object as she did so.

She had found the leg. She scrambled away, screaming in horror and then stumbled over her young brother. She had been the eldest and it was a twisted pain in her heart to see him there, lying forlorn and broken. Each finger was bent backwards, broken, his head at a 90-degree angle, on his stomach. His pants were around his ankles and there were bruises in his thighs, legs and buttocks. It seemed raped wasn't left only to the women. Tears spilt in a torrent as she knelt beside him and hesitantly reached out.

But she balked as something liquid touched her. It was his intestines. It seemed the favored this form of death. Then horror seized her and she looked at her father again. His stomach was not split open. They had made her father watch his son get raped and tortured only to be hanged by his intestines.

That was when she bent over and puked, dry heaving for hours, her head thick with it as she stumbled out of the town, trying to outrun her family's haunted image.

-----

She came back to herself on the floor of an anonymous alley in an anonymous town, her heart lodged in her throat, the words that had been spilling out of her mouth in a torrent, ceasing unexpectedly.

"…And I ran." She finished, realizing the extent to which she had cried. She looked over at the stoic hunter and saw only pity. She had expected compassion or at least sympathy but instead he pitied her situation.

"You don't even care." She said softly rubbing her eyes again.

He held out his hand to her and she took it, realizing only at that moment that she had been on the floor when he lifted her to her feet. "You want me to help you kill them." The words weren't even phrased as a question, but certainty.

She scowled at him for his arrogance. "I need you to help me learn. I will kill them."

"Which in other words means you want me to help you kill them."

Her scowl darkened, her melancholy banished to the deepest vestiges of her mind. "So, what? You just killed a man for calling your hunt useless. What's different about this?"

Fact was, she had a point. He wasn't proud of what he had done, but he had done it nonetheless. The man was dead no matter how he rationalized it. Thus he had learned to accept it and move on. Being reminded of the disgrace it had once been didn't encourage him to help the woman. In fact, he pointed it out to her.

"But…but that's childish!" she sounded genuinely surprised.

He smiled sickly at her. "what's your name?"

She frowned at him and said, "Aruna."

He smiled again, but it wasn't sickly or insane, but in fact hinted at the youth who had enjoyed to drink and to play cards. She crossed her arms trying to look upset or angry, but she was melting inside. He looked for a moment like a handsome young man that tragedy hadn't touched and she tried to keep her blush from creeping up, once again entertaining inappropriate thoughts.

She was succeeding, too, until he said with a wry twist of his lips, "you are too beautiful to be a brothel waste. Why would you whore yourself?"

She looked at the ground. "Well, I was told that you didn't like fantasy dreamers and I know that if it comes down to it, I would use my body as a means of killing my enemies…I thought it would…"

"Get you on my side?" he finished with a sneer.

She burned but in anger. "Shut up!"

He smiled wryly at her, a slightly twist of the lips and then said, "beautiful Aruna, you have seen what most men have never even dreamt of in their worst nightmare and have come out of it, still beautiful and still shining," she blushed scarlet but he pretended not to notice, "but I do not kill people who have done nothing to you, however it is within your rights to exact payment for the wrongs done to you."

He bowed with a flourish and procured a dagger among one of his many hidden sheathes and presented it to her, a thin, silver needle-thin blade with a silver hilt and diamond and sapphire studs. He said, "to protect yourself, for it is all I can do."

Aryne put it in her hand and tipped his hat, smiling at her and then turned on his heel and walked out of the alleyway and into the street. He ambled out and never looked back.

Aruna, the blond blue-eyed girl, clutched the blade to her and looked at its shape with amazement. She had never seen such a beautiful blade and wondered what it would look like bloodied. And then she looked over to where the man in his mid-forties had walked off and saw no one there. She felt a pang, because she didn't want to be alone anymore but she knew he would never have taken her with him. And she didn't want to think about him too deeply, especially since he was so much older than her.

Although to be honest, many arranged marriages happened between virgins just off of puberty and fat old lards with bald spots. And he wasn't so bad looking - gruff around the edges but, sweet in a way. She shook her head annoyed with herself for this continual thread of thoughts and walked off, clutching the blade to her. But she wondered what his story was.

--------

Aruna pushed open the door to her room and looked around, rather disappointed in what she found. Clothes and more clothes, and none of it were hers. The washers who did the laundry had stolen some of her clothes, so all the clothes on the floor were of her lover. She sat down on one of the chairs and slid down, her neck cradled on the lip, staring dully at the ceiling. A door opened but she didn't bother to look to see who it was. It was always the same man. She closed her eyes.

Then a pair of lips kissed her and her eyes shot open, looking over at Jeremiad. He had been a merchant's son and she had loved him. Loved was the term to be examined. He smiled at her, "hello there, lover. How did the brothels go, did you get a job?"

She cringed inside, hiding her sneer. "They don't take underage whores, Jer."

"What!" he said sharply going over and kneeling between her legs, his hands on her thighs looking into her blue eyes with his own brown ones. "Why did you tell them your age, sweetheart?"

Sweetheart. Disgusting. She squelched the impulse to roll her eyes. "Because I am only 16, and it could be considered statutory rape, darling."

He sighed, as if she were a dimwitted fishwife and he the valiant hero who scaled the walls to rescue the princess in distress for the sheer generosity of his heart. She ignored the sigh. "Darling, that was the entire point, was it not?"

She glared at him and he made a pacifying gesture, "look, okay. You have sex with this man – or woman! – And then go to the guards and tell them. We could get so much money from the House the Lord or Lady was from. Don't you understand?"

She smiled, but it looked more like a baring of teeth, "then why did you get upset when I told you they refused a 16-year-old youth?"

He looked peevish for a moment and she was reminded of a weasel. "Because, _darling_, they can't know, until afterwards or else it won't be valid."

She gave him an eloquent look. They both knew he had just come up with the idea when she mentioned rape. He sighed exaggeratedly and patted her knee standing, "next time, darling, just listen to me and we'll get money and I will take care of you."

"Just like you've been taking care of me so far, right?" she grumbled.

"What was that?" he asked, looking over his shoulder suspiciously at her. He had had many suspicions about his lovers day lit wandering since they got the apartment.

She shook her head and looked innocently at him, "not a thing." She shrugged off her jacket and stretched in the chair, walking over to the single bed and collapsing on top of it, wishing sleep to engulf her. She had a sudden image of Aryne. _That's what they called him in the bar. _She mused and imagined him here instead of Jeremiad. It was both eerie and heartening. Aryne didn't have any allusions about her, where Jeremiad tended to not see the things he didn't _want _to see. Shame, really. But Jeremiad was her first love, and she would have been just as dead as her family if he hadn't successfully wooed her heart.

Jeremiad left. She turned her head in the pillow and looked to the closed door, sighing. She wondered where he went all the time; especially if he needed a shower for it. These thoughts roiled in her mind until she could take it no more and she stood, gathering her light pack and putting the dagger in her belt and stormed out of the room. The people, upon seeing her, pointed towards where he had gone, until she caught sight of his head bobbing in the streets.

She followed a slight distance away, always keeping him within sight, and always ducking behind people to keep herself invisible to him. They winded down the streets, keeping to main roads. By this time her irritation had cooled and she ad begun to feel guilty for the suspicion when he should be the one to have it. She hadn't visited a single brothel. They didn't know her name or her reasons. The full guilt lay leaden on her heart as she watched him at one of the many vendors he had stopped at, buying something or other. She hadn't been paying close attention to what he was doing until something caught her eye. A small glint of metal passing from one hand to another. From thence she paid more attention to the exchanges.

She had been righteous in her earlier anger and it came over her double-fold as she watched him exchange items for items, always at the end the same metal being passed between individuals. Then disgust and outrage heated along her skin as she saw her clothes and little items being handed over. She discreetly slithered forward in the crowd, watching between moving gaps what the exchange was about.

"…Here." Jeremiad was saying.

The man he had passed her items to say grudgingly, "fine, fine, but remember no cash, no goods, understood. This is only a favor, an exchange, Jer."

Jeremiad smiled and nodded, snatching the small bag and scurrying away. She lost sight of him and cursed her luck and then steeled herself to talking to the 'vendor'. "Hey!" she said as she ambled up, friendly like. He only eyed her suspiciously under dark bushy eyebrows.

"What?" he asked sharply.

She nodded in the general direction of Jeremiad and then at her clothes, "those are my clothes, why did Jer give them to you? He's gonna get a lashing when I see him." She said darkly, looking in the direction the smug little bastard had run off.

The man only looked at her. She sighed. "so, you don't believe me, or don't care. Well…I understand but –" she looked around, noticing two discreet hulks walking around to her back. She stopped talking, watching them suspiciously. The man in front of her said softly, "you shouldn't have followed, Aruna."

She blinked surprised at him, "how the fuck---" her world spun into two pin points and then disappeared in a world of black, an aching throb descending down her spine. She managed a groan before her entire body became nerveless.

-------

Aryne looked around the bar he was sitting, sipping his water, trying to imagine the horror the young one had gone through and comparing it to his misfortune and unable to do so. He sighed and put his hat on his head, leaning the chair back on its haunches, closing his eyes when he decided a game of cards was in order.

He walked over to the knot of people around the table and added a dagger to the pot. "Can I play?"

They nodded, grinning, "you a newbie?"

He tilted his head, smiling. "Sorta. I used to play really well but that was…well thirty years ago."


End file.
